You Tube videos from the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las
Vegas, NV this past January
highlighted both versions of the new
LEGO MINDSTORMS® EV3 robot: one
available for home use and one
available for use in the classroom. One
video showed a LEGO robot rover that
was able to track lines on the floor.

It could be fitted with one of four
different interchangeable tools such
as a gripper, a hammer, a ball
launcher, and even a spinning
chopper. Figure 1 shows one of the
new EV3 tracked robots.

LEGO also demonstrated a robot
snake that slithered about on sets of
wheels and could snap at people
when onboard IR sensors detected the
warmth of their hand. Another version
that was available in the kit was a
scorpion that could hunt down and
track a user’s IR controller, and use
its tail to blast the controller with
small plastic balls. There is also a
treaded LEGO robot with a
powerful gripper that can carry
something as heavy as a soda can.

Many SERVO readers began
their interest in robotics by
constructing and programming
LEGO robots, and later stepped up
to more complex robots as their
fascination with robots progressed.
This is exactly what LEGO hopes to
accomplish with their excellent
educational systems.

The MINDSTORMS product line
is aimed primarily at children
around the age of eight. However,
many older kids love playing with
the different MINDSTORMS sets —
myself included.

Building these things is
addictive to all ages. It is this type of
robot that first interests young minds
and allows them to progress upward
to FIRST LEGO League robot
competitions and later to FIRST robot
competitions in high school.

A lot of folks construct robots in
both types of kits for fun, but the
knowledge that anyone can gain from
building these robots is directly
applicable to more advanced robotic
projects. LEGO has developed a
thorough STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering, Math) curriculum to use
with their MINDSTORMS systems in
school classrooms.

A Little LEGO History

The LEGO MINDSTORMS series of
educational robot kits has been

When many of us think
about LEGO, we recall all
those colorful plastic
blocks that kids have
strewn about the house, or
the time we unexpectedly
found one or more stuck to
our foot in the middle of
the night. If you or your
kids have ever worked with
the LEGO MINDSTORMS
sets to learn robotics, you
may have already seen
LEGO’s latest
MINDSTORMS robot kit: the
EV3 system. Let’s take a
look into the historical
background of
MINDSTORMS and compare
the three newest versions,
with a direct comparison of
the new EV3 and the
MINDSTORMS NXT that
was released back in 2006.

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october2013_ThenNow to post comments on this article.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS
Evolution — RCX to EV3
by Tom Carroll Then Now a n d